People who consume green leafy vegetables regularly lower the risk of developing a form of blindness that troubles millions a form of blindness elderly citizens.
“Eating a half-cut of spinach once a week is enough to provide protection against age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a form of blindness,” said Johanna Seddon of Harvard Medical School.
Located at the center of retina, the macula enables people to see fine detail. A person can be severely disabled when the macula is damaged and will prevent him to read, write or drive a car.
As of now there is no known way to avoid AMD, although laser treatment is utilized in few cases.
Seddon, who made comparison of 356 people diagnosed with advanced AMD with the diets of 520 without the disease, found out that spinach, collard greens, kale, mustard greens, parsley, dill and broccoli provide protection against AMD.
Fight Blindness with Green Vegetables
Killer diseases around the world are indeed difficult to halt. Although medical knowledge and advance technologies have made significant improvements and breakthroughs, there are still infectious diseases that continue to ravage and claim millions of lives. Moreover some of these diseases continue to take a heavy toll. HIV-AIDS, diarrhea, malaria, measles, and tuberculosis pass on a disease to million of individuals, killing numerous children and young adults.
HIV-AIDS
There are about six million people that are infected with HIV, and about 20 million people succumbed to AIDS.
In 2005 there were about five million cases of new infections and 3 million cases of AIDS-related deaths.
Diarrhea
There are about four billion cases every year, dubbed as a potent killer among the poor, is caused by various infectious diseases that can be transmitted by contaminated water, or food, or even lack of a good personal hygiene. These infections result in deaths toll of not less than two-million people annually. One of friend succumbed to diarrhea several years ago, which he took lightly but left him dehydrated eventually die.
Malaria
There are about 300 million people that are infected with this dreaded and deadly disease. About one-million victims die each year. In Africa one child dies of malaria every 30 seconds which is indeed an alarming rate. “Science has no magic bullet for malaria and many doubt that such single solution will ever exist.” According to World Health Organization.
Measles
In 2003, this deadly disease killed over half-million people. One of the leading cause of death among children, measles is vastly contagious. Each year about 30 million people contract measles although effective and cheap vaccine against measles was available for the past four decades.
Pneumonia
According to WHO, pneumonia is the leading cause of deaths among children than any other infectious deaths. Around two million children five years below die of pneumonia every year, and most of these deaths take place in Africa and South East Asia. In many parts of the planet, inadequate access to health facilities foils victims from acquiring medical treatments that could’ve save them.
Tuberculosis
In 2003, tuberculosis (TB) caused the death of more than 1.7 million people around the world. The appearance of drug-resistant TB germs is one of the main worries of health officials. Some of these strains have developed resistance to all major anti-TB treatments and medications. Drug-resistant TB strains normally develop in patients who go through poor supervision or have an incomplete medical treatment.
Tags: AIDS, diarrhea, diseases, drug-resistant, germs, HIV, HIV-AIDS, Killer diseases, malaria, measles, medical treatment, Pneumonia, tuberculosis
Healthy Living | admin October 6, 2009 | 
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